


better late than never

by ignitesthestars



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Siblings, Team as Family, background sara/jaal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 14:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10619262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitesthestars/pseuds/ignitesthestars
Summary: Scott is honestly finding Heleus to be kind of a drag.The parts of it he’s been awake for, at least. He’s willing to accept that the whole ‘running into the Scourge right as he’s coming out of cryo’ thing might have been an accident, but the ‘get your head cracked open by a genocidal maniac’ part is beginning to feel like a grudge.(or: Scott joins the Tempest crew)





	

Scott is honestly finding Heleus to be kind of a drag.

The parts of it he’s been awake for, at least. He’s willing to accept that the whole ‘running into the Scourge right as he’s coming out of cryo’ thing might have been an accident, but the ‘get your head cracked open by a genocidal maniac’ part is beginning to feel like a grudge.

Neither of those are the worst part (and Scott’s brain helpfully diverts around the whole Dad thing). He’ll take it to his grave and SAM’s harddrive, but waking up to find his sister - his twin - being the Pathfinder, being this person with the weight of a galaxy on her shoulders, being so damn far away from him?

He’s always been one half of a whole. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to do with this new Sara and all the bits and pieces that seem to have joined her during his bouts of unconsciousness.

…Okay, so they’re people. People who have helped keep Sara alive while the whole universe has gone to hell. He can be a little more charitable, probably.

“So, I mean, they’re a little bit insane, but you pretty much had to be to come to Heleus in the first place, right?” His sister is babbling, because his sister is nervous, and he’s not completely sure if it’s at the prospect of introducing him to her new family, or introducing her new family to him. “But they’re good people, Scott. Not always…nice people, or peaceful people, but good.”

“Sure.” He follows her to the boarding area to the _Tempest_ , letting the doors hiss open before he speaks again. “Just one question.”

“Hit me.”

“Am I the boyfriend or the dad right now?”

She rolls her eyes, checking him with her hip; they’re sixteen years old and he’s just caught her sneaking out again. He grins back at her, and for half a second things feel normal

Then they step onto the bridge of her ship. His sister has a _ship_ , and it’s a beauty of a thing if he’s ever seen one. Scott knows fuck all about spacefaring beyond ‘these things mostly don’t fall out of the sky unless someone’s shooting at them’, but even he can tell this is the peak of Initiative technology.

“Hold on a sec,” Sara says, touching his shoulder before she steps up to a state of the art galaxy map. She flicks through a couple of things on her omnitool before picking a location like she’s done it a hundred times before. He stands in the middle of the bridge feeling like a third arm, watching her back.

“Pathfinder, you have new email,” SAM intones. Something in Scott’s chest warms with familiarity at the sound of the AI’s voice, and isn’t _that_ weird? But he’ll take whatever normal he can get, these days. “Welcome to the _Tempest_ , Scott.”

“Glad to be here,” he breezes. It’s not a lie. Mostly.

“Really?”

Sara catches him off-guard with that damn wide-eyed stare she’d perfected when they were kids, although it seems pretty genuine now. He blinks back at her, before rubbing the back of his neck.

“Glad to be here with you?” he offers, because she deserves him being straight up with her. That’s one thing he knows hasn’t changed over the past few months. She’s still punching people in the face with the truth, and he won’t do her the disservice of not throwing back in kind. “Looking forward to finally getting into things. Even if it’s a little later than I expected. C’mon, weren’t we doing introductions?”

For a second she looks like she wants to pry a little deeper, before rocking back on her heels, nodding. To herself, to him, it doesn’t matter - that’s her shelving for later face, and Scott makes a mental note to brace for impact once he’s run the Pathfinder crew gauntlet.

“–Right.” She looks left, right, at the two empty chairs. “Suvi and Kallo are usually here, but I made them step out for a bit. They’re both really bad at taking shore leave. Kallo’s the pilot, Salarian, Suvi’s our science officer. Human. Kallo looks like you could break him in two with a sharp look, but he will gut you if you mess with his ship. Suvi likes to figure stuff out by licking it, no that’s not an invitation, and I’m pretty sure she speaks in poetry half the time.”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything!” he protests, holding up his hands. “And that’s with you giving me the perfect opening.”

“Ugh.” Sara stumps down from the map, heading for the - escape pods?

“Hey, I’m not that bad. We haven’t even left orbit yet.”

“What? Oh - no, this is definitely a metaphor.” She raps on the door. “Peebee? You in there?”

“That depends on if someone can be physically inside a literary technique.” The voice manages to be both chirpy and grumbly at the same time. “What do you want? I’m in the _zone_.”

Sara hits the door release. Fair, especially when the zone apparently involves tinkering with the guts of a Remnant Observer. Scott reaches for his pistol on instinct, although his hand strays when it clicks that no one else seems all that bothered.

“Well, I thought I’d introduce you to my brother now that no one’s dying, but if you have better things to do…”

“Than your brother? Little racy for a first meeting, don’t you think?” The asari lifts her head out of the Remnant and throws a grin in his direction. “Well, second meeting, technically. Third if you count that time I snuck into Cryo. I gotta say, you’re a lot cuter when you’re conscious and vertical.”

Just like that, Peebee wriggles in under his determination to be in a bad mood. Scott’s not a surly guy by nature, and there’s something infectious about the easy way she slides into the conversation. Compliments don’t hurt, either. He grins back.

“Yeah, well. You wouldn’t know from looking at me so far, but it’s my preferred mode of function.” He rolls the conversation back a bit. “Wait, you snuck into Cryo? I thought people could just walk in.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Peebee’s not a fan of functioning like a normal person.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re the last person to be talking about normal, Sara Ryder.”

Scott looks between the two of them, the warmth in the Asari’s tone, the grin in his sister’s. His eyebrows go up and then up again as a new context elbows its way into the conversation, although he waits until the door hisses shut on the little room before he fixes his sister with a stare.

“I thought you were with Jaal.”

Red instantly swamps Sara’s face. She laughs, eyes skating off to one side as she fiddles with her fringe.

“I - I am. And he knows. Nothing happened with Peebee after Jaal and I started dancing around each other.”

“But something happened before?” He doesn’t know whether to be impressed, or concerned. “Any other liaisons I should know about?”

“You didn’t need to know about that one,” she mutters. “And don’t call it a liaison, that sounds so bad. I was - we both were in a weird situation, and we made sure to establish it wasn’t anything serious first. This isn’t a military operation, you know.”

There’s a small edge of panic in Sara’s voice that makes him back off. He literally holds his hands up as they head off the bridge, gentling own voice. It makes him aware of how out of step they are with each other, but Sara needs his understanding more than his discomfort.

“Hey,” he says. “I’m not judging. Only teasing, I promise. I’m glad - I’m glad that you had people.”

 _While I was unconscious and Dad was dead._ That’s a heavy conversation for another time, though - maybe a lot of other times. None of what’s happened feels like a one-shot sort of deal.

She rubs her nose. There’s still a hint of red there, fading fast. “Thanks Scott,” she says, then lifts her voice. “Okay! Let’s go meet - whoever’s hanging out here.”

That turns out to be Liam and Lexi, and a little more of the strain knotted in the back of Scott’s neck relaxes. He knows both of them, although it was six hundred years and a galaxy ago that he met Liam, and Lexi’s one of the people who helped scoop his brains back in his head after the whole Archon showdown. Familiarity is a precious resource in Heleus, and Scott’s hoarding what he can.

“It’s good to see you’re doing better,” the asari says warmly. “Remember, the medbay is open whenever you need it, and I’m here to help. Physically or mentally.”

“Trust me, doc. The last thing I want is for it to be third time unlucky with the coma situation.”

“Are you suggesting you might listen to someone in authority?” Sara gasps.

“We’ve all gotta grow up sometime. You might give it a shot one of these days.”

Liam’s laugh is the extrovert version of Lexi’s warmth; he claps Scott on the shoulder, ribs Sara over his shoulder and offers to show Scott where the food is, where he can put his stuff. He glances at his sister just to double check he’s not stepping on her plans - for all he knows, she’s really devoted to the slightly awkward process of leading him by the hand around the whole ship and it’s occupants.

“Run and play,” she sniffs.

He gives her a two-fingered salute, and follows Liam into the bowels of the ship.

“Pretty overwhelming, huh?” Liam says. “Crew quarters are there by the way, I think Vetra and Drack are hanging out at the moment.”

“Krogan grandpa and the turian smuggler, right?”

“Haha, nailed it. Seriously though, how’re you holding up? I figured you probably wouldn’t want to worry your sister, but this is a pretty big step.”

There’s a smarmy retort sitting right on the tip of his tongue, but the other guy is so freaking earnest with his concern that Scott swallows it down. Stretches his arms over his head, stares contemplatively up at the glass walkway ahead.

“Had enough of waiting either,” he says finally. “‘Sides. Had more time to prep and get used to the situation here than you guys did with Habitat 7. I’ll be fine.”

He means it.


End file.
